Much Better
by Eudoxus
Summary: Shassie- Lassiter, Shawn, and a 5 AM meeting.


Shawn is waiting for Carlton when he shows up at work the morning after Lassiter's rather unpleasant dinner with his now officially ex-wife. He looks casual, careless and utterly Shawn leaning against Lassiter's desk sipping a super-sized pineapple smoothie through a gaudy purple straw, and if it hadn't been for the absence of Guster, ever faithful sidekick and voice of reason, and also the fact that it was currently five oh three ay em, Carlton might possibly have been none the wiser to the fact that Shawn Spencer was most assuredly up to something no good. Of course, Shawn was never up to something good, much less not up to something at all, so Carlton would never have thought that in the first place, and Oh Lord it is too early for these kinds of thoughts. It is also way too early to deal with Shawn.

Carlton doesn't instigate anything, though, or ask what Shawn is doing there as if he had been waiting there all night--surely he hadn't, the smoothie was still smoothie like and not water like, or, as would have been more fitting of Shawn and a pineapple smoothie, totally gone--like some creepy stalker.

"Spencer, wh-" he starts eventually, but Shawn holds up a hand to silence him and points at his forehead with a Shawn-like not quite smirk.

"Psychic, remember?"

Carlton rolls his eyes. "Oh that's right. I'm so sorry, it must have slipped my mind," he says. "I was going to ask where you found a Jamba Juice open at this hour."

Shawn slurps noisily at his smoothie. "Liar, liar lassi-frassi-super-sassy pants on fire. To answer your second question, I made it myself. And to answer your unasked first question, the one I know you were really going to ask because I am indeed psychic, is it such a sin for someone to show some emotional support to a close companion in a time of distress?"

Carlton glares as he turns on his computer and silently curses the department for not being able to afford something newer than prehistoric. He's fairly sure he could get more done in a reasonable time frame on his nephew's LeapFrog. When Shawn doesn't make a move to leave after Carlton's piece of junk desktop has finished booting and the first of the files Carlton was planning on reviewing are up on the screen, he clears his throat.

"Go away, Spencer."

Shawn slurps in response, which was about what Lassiter was expecting.

"Spencer--Go. Away."

Shawn sets his smoothie down on top of the manila folder Carlton had brought in with him, the one with the papers in it, the papers he doesn't want to think about, but he moves the plastic cup off and onto a bare spot of desk all the same. All the while he's giving Shawn a look that should be conveying great feelings of hatred and theoretically should have Shawn cowering in fear. But then again, Shawn has never responded like the average criminal to anything Lassiter does, and it seems to only have the greatly undesired effect of drawing the younger man in closer.

Too close.

Much too close.

"Spencer, what are you-mphf!" Carlton's delayed protests are muffled by Shawn's lips covering his own, his head held in place by one of Shawn's hands lacing through his already disheveled hair, the other grasping frantically at the collar of Carlton's jacket.

After Shawn finally pulls back, Carlton is just a little too surprised to make any move at all. He just sits there looking not unlike a frightened deer, eyes wide and not quite understanding, until Shawn whispers against his barely parted lips quickly and a little afraid himself. "I'm sorry last night didn't work out like you wanted it to, Lassi, but I just thought you should know that I can love you so much better than you've ever been loved before, and that sounded waaay less gooey in my head--please don't shoot me now."

Carlton clicks his teeth together, purses his lips. "Spencer-Shawn, what the he-"

"It doesn't take a psychic to figure it out, Lass," Shawn's voice is oddly quiet for the loudest person Carlton knows. "It's cool if you're not jiving with the whole another guy thing, or just with the me thing, or whatever. But I figured you could use the pick me up, and I could use the conscience clearing. I'm off, though. Gus's mornings just aren't the same when I'm not there to greet him with his paper and eat his cereal."

Shawn scoots back and off Carlton's desk, almost tips his smoothie over but steadies it, pushes it a little closer to Lassiter. He looks over his shoulder, sees the general vicinity is still blessedly empty other than them and high tails it for the exit before Carlton gets with it and decides he really does want to draw his weapon. Before he rounds the corner, though, Shawn turns to grin, bright and nervous, back at Carlton one last time. "But if for some reason you decide you'd like to reciprocate, I'll be at that Indian place off 3rd tonight at 7ish, all by my lonesome, chowing down on some wicked Tikka Masala and indulging in a magnificent bottle of Chardonnay. Just, you know, in case."

Then Shawn's around the corner and out the door and Carlton is still trying to muddle out what happened, which he figures doesn't bode well for the rest of the day if he, as a detective, can't even deduce whether or not Spencer just asked him out on a date. After kissing him.

When O'Hara invites him that evening after they get off to Tom Blair's for happy hour with her and Guster he politely (well, as politely as Carlton gets) declines. He decides, completely on a whim of course, that maybe he's in the mood for Indian tonight, and didn't he hear that there was a great little place off 3rd Street?


End file.
